SANTIAGO – Chilean President Michelle Bachelet signed into law Monday a measure that establishes the dismissal from office of elected officials convicted of violating campaign-finance regulations.

The new statute says that whoever occupies public office but whose electoral spending shows a lack of limits, control or transparency, will be barred from holding any public post for at least three years.

This measure, which forms part of the honesty agenda promoted by the current administration, was described by the head of state as “one of the most serious sanctions” in the Chilean legal system.

During the signing ceremony at La Moneda Palace, Bachelet said that a person “cannot be a representative of the common good who betrays the public’s trust in order to win a representative position.”

The president thanked lawmakers for the swift processing of this bill and repeated her call to continue “working to promote the agenda of honesty and transparency,” fundamental for “restoring the public’s faith” in its government.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the lower house, Marco Antonio Nuñez, and of the Senate, Patricio Walker, described the measure as “insufficient,” since “yet to be legislated is the mechanism by which those dismissed from office under this law will be replaced.”

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